In the book Flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi shares her secret on how to live a happy life. Csikszentmihalyi explains flow as why we seek happiness from outside sources and how damaging that is to the pursuit of happiness. This book shows it's reader how they can find enjoyment in life and how you can create your own life meaning.
3 Key Takeaways
To begin, the terms pleasure and enjoyment are distinguished as very different things. Pleasure comes from outside sources and is often confused as happiness. Pleasure is often felt through sensory experiences which include examples such as eating your favorite meal, getting a massage, or watching a movie. On the other hand enjoyment is something you direct your attention to and focus on. This is how one can experience true happiness. Enjoyment allows you to work towards your endeavors and long-term goals. Examples of enjoyment include playing a sport, developing artistic skills, or pursuing your business passions. For many, pleasure has been a main source of how they feel “happiness”. Pleasure makes it easy to access short-term gratification which gives an instant positive sensory experience. These pleasures, however, only last temporarily and do not give long-term happiness.
Slow is when you get into the groove of something you enjoy and your challenges meet your skills. An example of this is when you are playing a video game, you are immersed in the game and can spend hours on challenges that meet your skills. There are two key ways to reach the state of flow, first you must find an activity that is meaningful to you. Then, this activity must meet your skills just enough to challenge you. If the activity is too difficult you may get frustrated and give up, but if it is too easy you will get bored and stop the activity. The state of flow is when you feel like you can keep going and going with your activity that you are passionate about.
Lastly, the author explains that life is what we make it. We can give our own meaning to life. It doesn't matter what meaning you give life or what you choose to do with your life, as long as you are able to reach your flow state.It doesn't matter what other people think or if they have different values and different life meanings than you, the happiness in your life is what you make it.